It’s been an amazing year for us. The Lord has blessed us with our second son, Corin Solomon Sztanyo. He was born on August 2nd, and has been such a pleasure. His big brother, Emil, loves him dearly. And we just have to keep an eye on giving him too many hugs! Adjusting to two boys has been challenging, but we feel incredibly blessed to have both of them in our lives.

BlanketMyBaby has had a great year as well. We are never going to be Amazon or Wal-Mart, but we are happy doing what we do best, providing a wonderful baby blanket selection at a low cost. More and more, our customer base has been craving personalized blankets. So, we work hard to offer a great selection of blankets to choose from that can all have a personal touch to them. My Blankee and Angel Dear lovies are certainly among some of our bestsellers.

As we enter into this holiday season, we just wanted to take a minute to count our blessings. We are grateful for our boys, our health, our family, and our Lord. We hope you take the time to stop and be thankful as well. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to appease everyone with all the Christmas bustle. Take some time to enjoy the gift that God has given us – his son, Jesus. Emmanuel, God had come to live with us. Praise him!

It’s Christmas Eve. Witni and I are actually enjoying a day of cleaning up our house after all of the Christmas hussle and bustle. The grandparents have the baby tonight, and we are going to the movies to watch The Dawn Treader in 3D. I am very excited about this. These books were by far my favorite series as a kid (poor Harry Potter fans), and continue to impact me in a big way as an adult.

We’ve had a great year at BlanketMyBaby. It sure has been fun growing in our experience as store owners, and we are happy that there is many a baby across this great land who are snuggled and swaddled tight thanks to a blanket they received from our store. Maybe, there is a boy or two as well, who are clutching to their security blanket, straining with everything they have to hear sleigh bells on the roof. We hope so. To all of those kiddies, sleep well tonight. Tomorrow morning, you will open up all of your presents, but parents please remember to use this day to teach your children that we celebrate this day because the only gift we ever needed, came to earth as a baby. Our Lord and saviour, Jesus, came to earth and was swaddled the night he arrived.

God loves you. No matter what you are facing this holiday season, hold onto that. This world is full of heartache, pain and loss, but it is because of our fall and our choice to turn away from God’s original plan. We chose not to trust him. We chose to eat of the tree. But, he had a rescue plan in place, a greater intent. And his son came to the earth to seek and save that which was lost. I’m sure that is jibberish to many of you out there, but it is our life and our hope and our joy. Merry Christmas!

Visit the Michaels site to learn how to make the Caron Christmas Baby Blanket. You can purchase Caron’s Simply Soft Yarn at Michaels and download a free pattern for knitting and then embroidering a Christmas baby blanket.

The blanket can double as a baby carriage cover. This blanket pattern is rated as a 1 out of 5 for level of difficulty with 1 being the easiest.

The design is classic or country Christmas style and makes a great gift, keepsake or family heirloom.

Blueberry Babies carries a blanket made of white fleece and trimmed in satin. Babies love to touch soft trims and other textures. A comforting fact (given that this Christmas baby blanket is stark white) is that it is machine washable.

The blanket comes with one of the embroidered designs pictured above: a reindeer, Santa or holiday tree. The chunky, rounded designs of the embroidery give the blanket a cutesy, contemporary Christmas feel.

The blanket can be personalized with your baby’s first name. If you want to use this blanket for multiple children, you can skip the name, or why not embroider your last name only and use it as a family blanket? It would be a fun item to get out each year a baby in your family celebrates a first Christmas.

Do you own a great Christmas baby blanket or have feedback on one of the blankets showcased above? Tell us about it by posting a comment so that our readers can have all the information they need before making their Christmas baby blanket purchase.